• The 40th annual National Architecture Awards were announced last week
• Award winners were praised for intensiveness, imagination, pulchritude and multiplicity
• The full list of winners can be found below

Held for the second consecutive year via livestream, last week’s National Architecture Awards night marked the 40th anniversary of the annual event.

The award winners were chosen from the shortlist of 57 finalists who were selected from the original 807 entries.

Jury Chair and Immediate Past National President Alice Hampson congratulated all winners and thanked all entrants.

“These awards attest to our profession’s inventiveness, imagination, pulchritude and multiplicity,” Ms Hampson said.

“Collectively, this year’s awarded works exhibit the richness, intelligence, viscerality, complexity, individuality and delight of which Australian architecture is capable.”

Alice Hampson, Jury Chair

One extremely notable project was the already highly awarded Monash Woodside Building for Technology and Design. 

Designed by Grimshaw in collaboration with Monash University this building received both the Sir Zelman Cowen Award for Public Architecture and the David Oppenheim Award for Sustainable Architecture.

The project was highlighted for its sustainable design.

The jury commented, “the universality provided to this building through structure, daylight and amenity, through order in the plan and poetry in the whole, brings to light the architectural discipline like no other building noted by the jury this year.”

The Lachlan Macquarie Award for Heritage was presented to Williams Boag Architects.

They were recognised for their work on the historic Bendigo Former Mining Exchange.

The project was described by the jury as displaying “…both an enormous affection for the building, its meaning and story, and an intense desire to envision its ability to be useful for the future while enabling a deep and caring interpretation of the past.”

The Lavarack Barracks designed for the Australian Defence Force makes for an interesting addition to the prestigious awards list.

Designed by BVN, this project received the COLORBOND® Award for Steel Architecture as well as a National Award for Commercial Architecture.

A full list of this year’s award winners is below, the livestream of the event can be found on the Australian Institute of Architect’s website.